


A Wish Your Heart Makes

by Caro_the_Poet



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-12 08:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29631627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caro_the_Poet/pseuds/Caro_the_Poet
Summary: In which an Air Force General and a theoretical astrophysicist have a daughter who is obsessed with Cinderella. They are as confused as you are.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 23
Kudos: 77





	A Wish Your Heart Makes

It’s 9 pm, and the house is dim and quiet. Jack reclines on the living room couch, his legs stretched out in front of him with his heels perched on the coffee table, the musical sounds of Disney’s _Cinderella_ filling the room. Personally, he would have preferred to watch the hockey game, but the small girl curled against his side is in the middle of a full-blown princess obsession and he knows better than to argue with her. 

She’s stubborn like her mother, although he’s pretty sure the word Sam would use is "passionate." He smiles at that thought and looks down at his phone, the text that Sam sent him two hours ago still open. 

_Going to be a late night, my love. Kiss Emily for me and tell her I’ll see her in the morning._

Except Emily is still up, because she’s _passionate_ about not going to bed until Sam gets home. And since it’s Friday night and likely to be a lazy weekend, he’s indulging her. 

It’s not like she has him wrapped around her little finger or anything. 

He looks down at her curled up next to him, her small fingers fiddling absently with the loose threads hanging from a rip in his jeans. She’s dressed in a pale-blue Cinderella nightgown and her hair, blonde like Sam’s and unruly like his, sticks up from her head like a golden halo (she’s also passionate about her dislike for hairbrushes). She’s watching the prince and Cinderella spinning around the ballroom to _So This Is Love_ with serious brown eyes, eyes that are beginning to blink drowsily. Ten more minutes and she’s out cold.

The front door opens and then closes, and Jack hears the muffled rustling of shoes being kicked off and a jacket hung on the hook by the door. He smiles, as he always does when he hears those familiar sounds. 

_Sam is home._

Sam walks into the living room to the final strains of _A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes_ , and Jack grins at her as he picks up the remote and turns off the TV. “Hey.” 

“Hey, you.” She looks down at Emily, sleeping soundly against Jack’s side. “How are my two favorite people in the galaxy?” 

“The galaxy? You got people you like better in Atlantis or something?” He wiggles his eyebrows at her and she rolls her eyes. 

“Well, _obviously_. Rodney, for instance.” Jack only snorts at that and she leans over the back of the couch, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and resting her cheek against his. “Good day?” 

“Yeah. I took her fishing after she got home from school. She’s exhausted but she refused to go to bed until you got home, so...here we are.” 

“General Emily O’Neill.”

“I think she prefers ‘Grand Empress.’”

Sam laughs. She reaches down and runs her fingers through Emily’s wild blonde hair. “Hey, Em. Wake up, baby.” 

Emily’s eyes flutter open, and she looks confused for a moment before she sees Sam and launches herself at her. “Mommy!” 

Sam scoops up her small daughter and hugs her close. 

*

Jack peeks around the corner into Emily’s room, watching Sam down on her knees beside the little bed, pushing the little girl’s blonde halo of hair out of her eyes and softly singing the song that Emily requests every night. 

_No matter how your heart is grieving_  
_If you keep on believing_  
_The dream that you wish will come true._

Emily yawns and snuggles into her pillow. Sam’s braid is hanging over her shoulder and Emily reaches for it, running her little fingers through the soft ends. “Mommy?” 

“What, baby?” 

“Do you ever dream your wishes?” 

“I used to,” Sam replies softly. “A long time ago.”

“Why don’t you anymore?” 

“I guess because my wishes all came true.” 

“What did you wish for?” 

Sam is silent for a moment, thinking. Then she smiles in the dimness and says, “I loved your daddy very much for a long, long time before we were together. And I used to dream of us together, and this house, and having you, and being happy. I didn’t know if it would ever happen. But I kept my wish safe inside my heart, and I tried very hard to keep believing.” 

“Was Daddy wishing, too?” Emily lets go of Sam’s braid and tucks her hand under her cheek on the pillow, and Jack, still surveying the little scene, feels his chest ache with how much he loves them, how grateful he is for the life they have built--and how close they came to never having it. 

“You’ll have to ask Daddy that.” Sam kisses Emily’s forehead and gets to her feet. “But I think he was.”

“That must be why your wishes came true,” Emily says sleepily. 

“It must be.” Sam blows a kiss from the doorway. “Night night, little princess.” 

“Night, Mommy.” 

Jack catches Sam’s arm as she comes through the doorway, pulling her into an embrace and burying his face in the curve of her neck. She leans into him with a contented sigh. As much as she loves running the SGC, it’s both mentally and physically exhausting. Coming home to her little family reminds her why it’s all worth it. Why it’s _always_ been worth it. 

“Love you,” Jack whispers against her ear. He lifts his head to look at her and she presses a kiss to his lips, her hands on either side of his face. When she pulls back he grins at her. “So. Making wishes, huh? Awfully whimsical for a theoretical astrophysicist.” 

Sam chuckles. “Gotta speak to her in the language she understands. If she learns to love the stars by wishing on them, so much the better. Maybe she’ll travel to them someday, like we did.” 

Jack smiles at that idea. “Maybe she will.” He traces a finger along her jawline and kisses her again. “I did, you know. Dream, I mean. About you.” He pauses. “About this.” 

“I think you had faith for both of us, sometimes,” Sam says softly. 

“And so did you, sometimes.” 

“It is a little like a fairy tale, isn’t it?” 

“Well,” says Jack, leaning back against the wall, “it’s certainly not _every_ day that Prince Charming rides off into the...event horizon... with the brilliant astrophysicist under his command.” 

Sam’s eyes twinkle the way they do when she’s trying not to laugh. “Impressive use of the metaphor, babe.” 

“ _Isn’t_ it though?” He looks so inordinately proud that Sam giggles in spite of herself.

Just then her stomach growls and Jack narrows his eyes at her. “Samantha. Did you forget to eat again?” 

“You know,” she says, “I dreamed about blue jello last night.” 

“Now that is a wish I can grant.” He takes her hand and pulls her toward the kitchen. 

“At times like this I’m really glad I ‘rode off into the event horizon’ with you,” she says as he pulls the bowl of jello out of the fridge. 

“Just times like this?” He wiggles his eyebrows at her. “I _knew_ it. You only married me for my cooking skills.” He sets the bowl and a spoon down in front of her. 

“Oh, that was only part of it.” She takes a bite and grins at him. “You also looked really hot in the uniform.”

He leans forward on the counter. “And...did the uniform appear in these dreams you used to have?” he asks, a seductive smile turning up the corners of his mouth. 

“Nah, that was missing most of the time. The _sidearm_ , however…” 

“That’s it.” He pulls the nearly-empty bowl away from her and tugs her away from the counter. “You can eat later. Come on.” 

“Where are we going?” she asks with exaggerated innocence as he backs her down the hallway, pausing to press kisses against the curve of her neck. 

“Carter, I’m gonna make _all_ your dreams come true.” 

*

Some time later, with Sam’s head pillowed on his shoulder and her arm draped across him, he watches her. She’s not asleep, but she seems far away. “I can hear you thinking,” he says, and she startles. 

She pulls him closer, not sure if she wants to tell him what she was thinking--how she was remembering the long-ago days of za’tarc detectors and memory stamps, close calls and near misses, mountains of uncertainty and nothing to live on except hope. Hope and dreams and secret wishes on the stars in other planets’ skies. 

Jack pulls back to look at her. “Sam?” 

She opens her eyes and smiles up at him. _“You_ are my dream come true,” she says. 

He smiles back at her and threads his fingers through her hair. “And you are mine.” His eyes begin to twinkle with barely-suppressed mischief. “It really was the challenge to arm wrestle that did it for me.”

“You thought about that for _years_ afterward, didn’t you?” 

He shrugs. “I still think about it.” 

She laughs and buries her face against his shoulder. _“God,_ I love you.” 

He kisses the top of her head. “I know.”


End file.
